Two Novels of the Revolutionary War by Jeff Shaara

Author:Jeff Shaara [Shaara, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-53487-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

As he moved northward, he continued to pass the gathering troops, more of his army, seeking the safety of Harlem Heights. He met officers as well, new orders going out, men sent back to the southeast. As the Post Road cut more diagonally across the island, it ran through a natural defile of rocks known as McGown’s Pass, where he was certain a small body of men could hold back a much larger British advance. It was the last piece of good ground his men could use to keep the British away before they came to the flat plain in front of Harlem Heights. He didn’t know if it would work, but he gave the job to the Marylander, Smallwood, one of the few men whose troops he knew would make a stand.

As the darkness spread, it began to rain. The shovels still worked through the deepening mud, but the wounded and the panic-stricken found whatever shelter they could, the sounds of the rain muting the cries of their misery. Washington tried to ignore the rain, sat on his horse on a protruding point of rocks, stared to the south. He had seen nothing of the British, and so, he knew that Smallwood was doing his job, that the British had been slowed down enough to halt for the night below McGown’s Pass.

Putnam’s division had made their escape, exhausted men who had survived the incredible journey up the long route of the Bloomingdale Road, a forced march led by the furious tenacity of their commander. Though Knox had left behind many of his guns, and the men had given up far more of their supplies than the army could afford to lose, four thousand troops had slipped past an enemy three times their number and were now safely in Harlem Heights.

With Howe’s occupation of New York, Washington had one other concern, could not keep it from his mind. Nathanael Greene was in a sickbed in the city, would surely have been captured, had von Donop’s Hessians not been so interested in plunder. As the bleak night wore on, General Greene had made his escape as well, had ridden safely to the Heights, his arrival an astonishing, joyful surprise.

Washington was still out on the point of rocks, the horse quiet beneath him, could still hear the sound of shovels, the army doing its work to make the high ground safer still. The word of Greene’s return had come from his staff, and he had sent them away, did not respond to their curiosity, why he did not join the welcome. He was enormously relieved that Greene had returned, perhaps too much so, felt a strange release of emotion at the news, but he kept it to himself, would not allow the staff to see him that way. There had been enough emotion today, this shameful, awful day. He was embarrassed still by his show of anger at his troops, and though no one else seemed to fault him, though no indiscreet comments came to him, he knew it had been a serious mistake to lose control of his demeanor.

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